Chapter XII: Home Again, Rolling, Rudderless! Theology

[Coleridge reached England on 17th August 1806 (_Letters_, 499), and made for London, intending to write articles once more for Daniel Stuart. He does not seem, however, to have done anything at this time for the newspapers.[5] Humphry Davy was endeavouring to get him to give a course of lectures on the Fine Arts (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 154). At the close of the year Coleridge was at Coleorton, the seat of Sir George Beaumont in Leicestershire, where he met William and Dorothy Wordsworth.[6] Wordsworth read to him the _Prelude_, now completed; and Coleridge, after its recital, wrote the well-known poem to Wordsworth in blank verse, which is as much a dirge over his own failures as a eulogy of Wordsworth's poem. Wordsworth's view of the great men of all ages, forming an interconnected scheme of truth slowly being revealed, is a Coleridgean rather than a Wordsworthian idea (_Prelude_, Book XIII, 300-311); and Coleridge in his verses to his brother bard hails him as among the men of the Permanent, among the

Choir of ever-during men.

On 17th February, Coleridge was still at Coleorton (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 138); but in July, Coleridge and his wife and family were again at Stowey on a visit to Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 175-182). Here Coleridge remained till the end of September. Tom Wedgwood had died while he was at Malta; and his brother Josiah expected Coleridge to furnish him with some materials for a Life of Tom. Poole endeavoured to impress upon him the necessity of complying; but the task was distasteful to him, at which Josiah Wedgwood, not unnaturally, was displeased.[7] But Coleridge, after some procrastination, wrote to Josiah Wedgwood on 27th June 1807, giving reasons for his delay (Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, p. 324); and Wedgwood wrote to Poole, "I was truly glad to hear from him. His letter removed all those feelings of anger which occasionally, but not permanently, existed in my mind towards him." (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 185.)

Meantime, we find Coleridge again in correspondence with Cottle, who had heard of his arrival in Stowey. Cottle wrote to him, expressing the hope that Coleridge's health would soon allow him to pay a visit to Bristol (_Rem._, 305). To this Coleridge replied: